a very quick story chapter i had on my mind for a bit for some reason.

Black

Dragon

The following is the story of a thing.

An object.

It does not exist as anything other than a concept, a living stone is still a stone, a twig cannot hear, a gust of wind cannot hope.

Chapter 1

dragon.

the rain pelted him as he lay there, unmoving, barely cognizant.

The moment he opened his eyes, symbols flared where the pain of a dream he was unsure he was having should be.

Cringing, he tightened his black coat and tried to return to slumber, but to his dismay, he found that sleep would not visit him.

Blinking, he rose.

He was inside of a tree from the looks of it.

A tree.

Specifically he was nestled in the heart of a massive tree, the bottom of which opened into the paltry shelter he'd managed to craft for himself.

It was cold.

So cold.

He rose, shaking off the exhaustion, his body denying him the privilege of continued rest.

He knew immediately what he was, though he didn't recall why, and after looking at his hand, which appeared human, he knew the image to be an illusion.

He was no man.

Shaking his head, the rain pouring thick down his brow, his nostrils flared and he strode through the rain, his body hardly heeding his efforts.

Staggering into the cold, he stubbornly moved with purpose.

But what purpose?

He didn't care.

He simply moved.

It was all that mattered.

Hours turned to a day, and then those too became numerous, the days rolling on as did the violent rain storms pelting his form with a sharp chill that he calmly shrugged off.

Cold would not bother him,

he refused to allow it.

His coat began changing, turning into a more proper looking type of attire, a long black trenchcoat with the words 外人 emblazoned on the back across the shoulders, though his hair hid it from view.

His hair was long and black, and he had the beginnings of a beard of his soft, rounded chin.

His face was firm, stern, and determined.

He hungered for something.

But many days had passed, so he could stand to avoid eating for a while longer.

Did he even need to eat?

He fell to his knees as the rain struck harder than was possible, and he gripped his head as something began hurting.

The pain knifed through his skull, and everything went dark.

But the pulsing symbols clawing at the edges of his vision remained.

Were they a hallucination?
Or….

The skies finally cleared, and he found himself in a city of some sort.

What city?

What did it matter?

He walked into the town, his armored boots striking the sidewalk as the morning sun spilled over the many tall buildings past the railroad in the distance.

He blinked.

There was a woman there.

He moved a bit closer as she continued to struggle with something.

What was she doing?

What did it matter?

He could just turn, run away, escape this potential threat, but something held his attention.

The train signals began lighting up and ringing.

The gates closed.

The woman's struggles became more frantic, and she began screaming.

His eyes narrowed, something was approaching.

It was….long.

A train?

Whatever it was, it roared with noise, the combined noise of countless wheels scraping along iron bars fitted in a peculiar….

Enough of that.

Hachiko Murasaki frantically tugged at her foot, caught between the rails as if held by some god-bound force.

The train closed in, and she found herself screaming, completely ignoring her groceries as she tried frantically to pull her foot free.

The train was twenty feet away now.

Her heart sank as she knew her doom, the cold pit in her stomach pushing itself deeper, as if in to sink her soul into the very depths of despair.

She cried out as the train bore down on her, its driver blissfully ignorant of what was in front of the tracks.

She closed her eyes and prayed to the gods.

When she opened them, a figure in a long black trenchcoat with the japanese kanji 外人 emblazoned on the back by the shoulders, though it was partially hidden by his long black hair, was standing over her, his right arm winding up for what appeared to be a punch.

She felt even worse now.

A foreigner was trying to punch a train to get it to halt? Or was this some prank of the gods to make her feel worse in her final moments?

What kind of fate could have befallen her, to die in such a manner? Not only inconveniencing the poor driver who would no doubt be scarred for life, but pulling some foolish foreigner who looked more like an anime cosplayer who lost his way than an actua-

she didn't get to finish that thought.

The foreigner, for that was what “gaijin” meant, thus she had nothing else to think of him as at that moment, struck the front of the train as hard as he could.

As he did so, his image wavered and flashed, replaced by what appeared to be the upper torso of a massive serpentine dragon.

The train came to a jarring halt, the force of the foreigner's fist deceptively powerful.

As his image flickered, the image of the dragon's entire body could be seen violently wrapped around the train.

“what….on earth?” she muttered.

Just as quickly as the image of the great serpentine dragon with ebony scales came into view, it faded from view and the foreigner gave a long sigh of relief before turning to regard her.

American from the looks of him.

Though….she wasn't sure.

“well…..that was….fun.” he said, panting as he slowly staggered back.

She blinked and looked down to her foot, taking a moment to undo the damage to it.

The train was crushed and smashed up in many areas, and the conductor had the presence of thought to stop the train's engines the moment it had “crashed” and he'd taken a second to look outside.

But by the time he'd done so, hachiko was free of the rails.

She took a step back, measuring her savior, her eyes looking him over as she considered him.

He was tall, young, fairly handsome, and with fierce icy blue eyes one would expect to see from a viking.

Like most americans she'd known of, his nose was broad, lips were fairly broad as well, but the bridge was narrow.

The classic babyface santa nose combination really, but his features were also quite thin.

In truth, he appeared quite distinguished, like a noble or businessman, but his attire upon closer inspection seemed to belong to a goth, but was styled to almost come off as business attire.

In a way, it was a magnificent disguise, the appearance from a distance would lead people to assume he was in fact just a foreign worker or perhaps head of his own company.

But the most peculiar feature about this fellow was his boots.

Black metal greaves that could have easily come from the medieval period, something you'd imagine black knights would wear.

The toes of the boots were pointed, and the greaves were complimented by a shirt that was much too long for the young man's body.

In fact, his clothing appeared to have been created from the imagination, for she could think of no other process that would craft such strange shapes into clothing without leaving some sign of the alterations, folds or obvious stitches.

“T-thank you.” she said with a bow and turned to leave.

The fellow shrugged.

She stopped then, feeling guiltier than she should, and wondered what to do.

This stranger had just saved her life after all.

Part of her wanted to have nothing to do with the bizarre character who'd just punched a train to a grinding halt on her behalf, he clearly wasn't human, but at the same time, a debt was owed to this fellow who'd saved her life.

“Umm….” she began.

“what?” he asked.

“w-would you...like something to eat perhaps?” she asked, and the stranger shrugged.

“sure, why not?”

as they made their way to her apartment through the city, the fellow got his fair share of strange looks, and she could tell the others were beginning to gossip, or soon would be.

As she came to the front door, she turned to face her savior.

“I am hachiko murasaki.” she said, introducing herself in english, which she preferred to speak, despite being japanese.

“Name's...uh…..kuro. Kuro ryu.”
“Black dragon?”
“it's what I am.” he said, shrugging.

She recalled the way his image had flashed earlier and blinked a few times.

“本当に？！”She said in japanese, clearly too surprised to maintain her use of english.

”本当だぞ。”he replied, biting her use of casual to a complete stranger, and she wisely checked herself.

A savior should be treated with more care, she reasoned and she gave a sigh, inviting him into her house.

As she entered, her shoes came off.

Seeing that, kuro stopped for a moment frowning as he considered the boots.

“cursed humans can't even give me something proper to work with, ちょっと待ってください。”

focusing on the legs, he changed the bizarre greaves, their form melting into shadows around his legs and transforming into a set of leather boots with black steel plates on the front but a zipper down the inner sides.

Unzipping them, he stepped into her household in a set of black socks with almost comical white dragon symbols on them.

Seeing the casual use of what appeared to be magic for something such as transforming his attire, the strange shape of his shirt and coat made a bit more sense.

“what...are you?”
“a dragon, I thought we'd cleared that up.” he said, frowning.

“I told you my name, wasn't your name kuro ryu?”
“it was.” he replied flatly.

She waited for him to elaborate, and he blinked a few times, suddenly understanding.

“name is the same as identity, which is the same as what I am. I am a black dragon, a kuro ryu, it is what I am.”
“where...did you come from?” she asked, breathless at the mere idea that someone so bizarre could be something so mighty.

“Humans.” he said with a shrug.

“P-perhaps you can elaborate over dinner?” she asked and he shrugged again.

“sure.”

she prepared ramen, having a lousy budget for anything more, kuro sniffed it gingerly when it was served, but ate it readily, finding it much to his liking.

“i have never heard of dragons that could create illusions.” she explained.

“neither have I. My magic is probably different.” he said.

“how?”
“I don't create illusions, I create things for my appearance.” he explained.

“why?”

“Because being me might be…..inconvenient I suppose.”
she cocked her head at the insufficient response.

“I am a dragon. I am extremely large. Being human makes it easier to travel in a world designed for them.” he said.

“oh...i see...then...why did you save me?”

he shrugged. “I just did. Something about seeing you like that upset me, so I felt compelled to help.”
“thank you.”
“you said that, but you're welcome I guess.” he replied, preferring to eat another bite of ramen.

“where...did you come from? I've never heard of dragons in this world.” she said, pressing him for information.

“I'm from humans.”
“I don't understand.”
“tell me, when you think of dragons, what do you imagine?”

she paused to consider that.

“I think of majestic, powerful forces of nature.” she said, contemplating the image in her mind.

“that's where i'm from.” he said, and she blinked.

“what you did there, where you made up something in your mind. That's where i'm from.”
“my imagination?” she asked, alarmed.

“No, everyone's.” he explained, gesturing out the window.

“I am a black dragon, I am formed from every human's impression of what a black dragon must be. I am, for all intents and purposes, a collective figment of human thought given form.”
“so...why did you come to japan?” she asked.

“I was born here five days ago I think.”
“five days? But you know english and japanese!!” she cried.

“I also know what I am. Isn't everyone born with such knowledge?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Humans are born ignorant.”
he frowned.

“well that's just silly. How inconvenient that is! To be born without knowing anything!”

she burst out laughing, and kuro blinked in confusion.

“that's right!” she cried, laughing.

Kuro shrugged.

“seems I too don't know everything then, just all I needed to know. So I ask, what happens now?”

she yawned, thinking.

“I'm going to bed, since you saved me, you're welcome to stay in my home, just don't cause trouble. I will let you stay here as long as you wish.”

“alright then.” he said with a yawn.

Hachiko washed the dishes and prepared a bed for kuro, but when she went into the living room to fetch him and show him to the room, she found him curled up on the floor like a dog, sleeping contentedly.

And not human.

His dragon form wasn't particularly large, but his current state had clearly been given a lot of thought, for it was certainly the size of a common canine.

His scales practically gleamed in the light of the television she'd had silently playing in the background, he appeared to be just like the ancient serpentine dragons of legend, the sort that became great rivers.

Of course in kuro's case there were a few differences, he lacked whiskers, and his mane was thick to the point of resembling rooster's feathers, but jet black like the rest of his body.

He snored peacefully, and she reached down tentatively to stroke his mane, so caught up in the beauty of him that she felt compelled to pet him like any sleeping dog or pet.

Kuro's eyes snapped open immediately, their placid blue now a fiery orange.

“what is it?” he asked.

“I...um, sorry, I just wanted to pet your mane.” she said, hardly believing the words herself.

It seemed quite disrespectful to something that should be a proud and dangerous creature of myth, and after considering the request for a second, kuro's coiled body gave a shrugging motion.

“sure, go ahead.” he grumbled, giving a yawn that showed rows of razor sharp needle-like fangs, like a hybrid between a snake's and a dog's.

Stroking the man revealed that it was quite soft to the touch, very fluffy, and kuro didn't seem to mind.

By the time she'd finished, he was already sleeping contentedly, as though the mere act of being given such attentions had only served to push him into slumber all the more quickly.

[note]

i've been fascinated with modern japanese culture for a while, so for me the story that i was making was sort of a slice of life type setting, but with a twist.

kuro is a black dragon, a creature formed from human imagination, his first interaction with his creators is with the woman hachiko, whom he saves from certain misfortune.

the point of the story was to show how raw power acted to counter the very idea of society, but i dropped the very notion of creating such a story because it kept giving me a headache to think about.

this is the prototype that i decided never to pick up.